doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DIY Gunsmithing @ doublegunshop.com Difficult Anson forend

Have an Anson forend which takes a little bit of prying to get the forend to release when the button is pushed. When reinstalling the forend, it doesn�t fully snap until you press firmly, and then the button is back to its extended position. Which surface needs to be dressed up to resolve this? Thanks.

you may try unscrewing the push rod a single turn first, If that does not work the pull the fore end wood and it will become very obvious.

Have the push rod turn a try. No improvement. The wood and iron are seemingly fond of staying together, and I do not want to risk damaging the wood to pull them apart, so I can�t see the obvious area to address. It will have to stay like it is for now.

First thing I would do would be to separate the forend Iron from the wood. Needless to say remove all the screws holding the Iron to the forend wood then place the forend in a polythene bag then place in a freezer for a couple of days. Remove it and let it warm up to room temperature for two or three hours, then repeat back in the freezer. As the metal shrinks with the cold and the wood changes very little, this usually brakes the metal wood bond. After a couple of freezer treatments, and while the metal is still cold try to part the metal and wood.
With the wood removed you will soon be able to see what the reason is why the forend wont remove by operating the release button.
Simple but very effective method of parting metal components from wood.

Brilliant. Thank you. I've done that with frozen metal parts, but not with wood/metal.

If this is on a used gun, just bought, the action may have been tightened, including "stretching" the forearm iron, so that it bears hard between the action and the lug on the barrel. This is a pretty common "trick", and if that is the cause, it will ease up with use.
Mike

Thanks. Yes, used gun, and was like this when I got it.

Also check the sides of the forend lug on the bbl and the corresponding inside edges of the cut in the forend iron that it drops thru for interference.
The iron may be ever so slightly bent and rubbing hard on one side or the other making for the very tight fit.

Or the wood inlet for the bbl shape on one side may be a bit high at the muzzle end of the forend. This will push the entire F/E assembly over to one side as it seats causing the same problem as above.

Needing to seat it 'firmly' to get the lock to engage and button to extend from the front can be then simply wedging the iron into place betw one side of the lug and that cut out.
Especially if you see the lock button doing a slow walk toward the front position instead of snapping into place. It's being bent very slightly also and not as free to move as it should be.
The lock surface on the forend latch is a beveled plane not unlike the bolt locking surface. It locks with a 'snap'. The bevel to take up wear.
If it won't go into position at all untill you start pushing hard on the somewhat flexible steel and wood component part,,then you are bending something there to make it position itself.

If, as DerAmi pointed out, the F/E iron has been stretched, (we don't know that it has of course), the punch and judy stretch methods that nicely elongate the narrow front section of the iron can also make it take a gentle bend or twist.
Though the mis-allaignments may be hardly noticable, they're enough to cause a once nicely fitted iron that dropped over the forend lug to now drop over only if it's forced down upon it. The latch has to follow that bent or twisted iron as well and doesn't as smoothly as it should.
Once on and latched, it usually takes a bit of prying to separate again.

Getting the iron assembly out of the wood and trying it on the gun will tell you a lot.

Just my thoughts...

All set. Got it apart with deep freeze method. Easy fix. Thanks All.